Thursday, January 28, 2010

Smackdown Report for 1/8

Opening Batista/Rey confrontation is opening Batista/Rey confrontation.

Ziggler/Kane was better this week than last because they stuck to mainly the fun energetic mat stuff as opposed to shitty, shitty strikes. Usually I’m all about the striking but not from these two. You also didn’t have the annoying cutaway, and the finish was pretty clever. Still not great stuff but these two are an interesting pairing and I could probably keep watching their stuff. As long as it doesn’t get too long, because fuck that. And they need to work some tags with Mike Knox and Finlay so they’ll start hitting like men.

I probably don’t really need to talk about the backstage divas thing but Layla owned it. Jericho in the locker room with the Harts was pretty funny because when he was talking Natalya was looking at him as if he was proposing some scat fucking. Somehow this led to R-Truth which made me massively disappointed, this apparently was gonna be a Harts & Jericho against Cryme Tyme and Truth six-man tag. Jericho gets to continue his crusade against minorities in WWE which is getting pretty funny at this point. Seriously, since the start of 2009 he’s railed against the elderly (the Rourke/Flair/Steamboat feud that took like four months in hindsight), Mexicans (Rey), blacks (Cryme Tyme, MVP & Mark Henry, Batista is Filipino but he grew up in Washington so he’s gotta have some black in him, plus now Truth apparently), midgets (DX has Hornswoggle), and Legacy has pretty clearly been booked as the WWE’s gay troupe and he had a PPV match against them, too. Can’t wait for Jericho to start wrestling for the women’s title or something like that. The only thing that stood out about this match was realizing Shad shaved his head and doesn’t have his braids anymore. Well, and Jericho busting out the Lion Tamer for the finish. That was cool. But this had to be the least interesting six-man WWE has run in forever.

Not really sure what to put down about CM Punk shaving young James and initiating him into his straight edge cult. Except that every single moment of it was fucking awesome. Every single moment. If the show was just this segment repeated ten or twelve times it’d still be so great. And then it leads into Luke Gallows vs Matt Hardy, which on paper should be awesome, provided my January 2008 scouting report is still valid (and as I said, I’m keeping my eye on Matthew). Gallows really lucks out with gimmicks, the Festus thing was awesome, and his gear now is just absolutely perfect for the sXe punk rock soldier. He’s pretty much the perfect second for Punk and watching them as a unit makes me want to say ‘fuck watching this show’ and watch SLC Punk! instead. Anyway the match is quite good, Gallows still rocks even with the transition and Matthew has earned my approval for today. Wouldn’t mind seeing these two get a longer Superstars slot.

Vickie Guerrero rules but the shit with Maria selling the Celebrity Apprentice show was hideous and I skipped through it. Beth Phoenix and Layla have a surprisingly good match that is pretty much all Layla stooging, probably my favorite women’s squash I’ve seen. There’s a post match angle and Mickie is wearing the ugliest top. Like the entire storyline here is that Michelle and Layla are calling Mickie this slovenly beast and she comes out wearing that top? Wouldn’t have been my choice. At all.

I decided to skip through the Bret-Hart-on-RAW recap and ended up skipping through most of Drew McIntyre interview and after his match last week I decided I wasn’t going to bother rewinding. Then John Morrison showed up and somehow this all ended up better than that aforementioned shit match. Weird how that works.

Batista’s spotlight is awesome. It’s just a normal spotlight and it’s not nearly as high end or superstar as the ol’ cum pyro but it’s a pretty great way to get over that he’s a total asshole. I think this is like the fourth Rey/Batista match in about a month and a half at this point, pretty exciting matchup (again using the scouting report) but that’s a bit overkill, no? The match is good, don’t know if it’s as good as the Gallows match from earlier but it’s pretty close, Rey eats Batista’s spear like a champ and Batista is just such a glorious asshole now. However the Undertaker chicanery for the finish really kills this, you go from Batista being a pompous ass to the lights out, and it’s really terribly disjointed from there. I guess ‘Taker came out and gassed them or some shit. I guess that’s how you set up a three way, though I’m not sure why they… you know what, nevermind.

Smackdown Report for 1/1

Yeah we’ll see how long this shit lasts for.

Pretty neat video package of the past two weeks, Rey beating Batista to get a shot at Undertaker and then the subsequent shot at Undertaker, which Batista interrupts. This seems to be building a three way, the video in particular putting over that Rey can hang with these two and even win. I am fine with this.

This show features beat the clock which is fantastic for everyone who likes lots of short, not-very-good wrestling matches. Punk is out first, yet another great promo and Punk’s promos are pretty much the best thing in wrestling. Certainly in WWE. I mean not many other guys are cutting angry promos threatening to beat up everyone in the arena because they can’t raise their hand and follow directions like he has requested. I am excited to see him save people from the audience. Sadly I have to wait a week for it. But name dropping Minor Threat and Youth of Today always works for me so whatever.

MATT HARDY. I haven’t watched Matt Hardy in some time. Clearly he LOOKS worse than he did this time last year, but I’m actually excited to see if he is as good as he was this time last year or if the heel turn just totally murdered his career. Matt Striker is awfully cute trying to add some story background to the match but man, this could not have been more of a ‘nothing happens’ match if nothing had actually happened. It’s not shit or anything like that, they just kind of… do stuff for seven minutes. Evidently this will not be the match to determine if Hardy is any good still or not. I’ve my eye on you, sir.

Oh good, seven minutes of KANE. Dolph Ziggler really grew into something cool from working extensively with Finlay and Rey Mysterio last summer, then curiously they put the Intercontinental title on John Morrison instead and forgot Ziggler ever existed. Plus it`s probably a pretty fucking terrible idea to be working with Morrison a lot, lest one starts to strike like he has marshmallow hands. The first bit of this match is actually pretty cool, all this nice energetic stuff on the mat that I wouldn`t have expected out of a Kane match so I figure, you know what, I can watch this. Then Ziggler busts out the marshmallow strikes. Then there is a cutaway to the back as Punk and Luke Gallows watch this match with interest. I get why they do that, to get over Punk being interested in if someone will beat his time or not, but I HATE when they cut to someone watching a match. I WANT TO BE THE ONE WATCHING THE MATCH. Anyway then Ziggler puts on a sleeper hold that looks like he is trying to spoon with Kane. Yeah you dumped Maria, but I do not especially need to see you try to get nice and close with Kane, y’know? So I totally gave up on this match. Should have trusted my initial instinct to not bother with seven minutes of KANE.

Recap of Cena/Sheamus from the Monday show, if I wanted to be watching that show I would have. Skip.

The Great Khali squashes someone in a Carolina Panthers jersey. I do not care.

There is a Morrison vs Drew McIntyre Intercontinental title match because everyone must have a rematch. McIntyre is totally unable to take advantage of Morrison dangling from the middle rope by one foot in any sort of interesting way. It does lead to Morrison being hesitant to do his springboard nonsense, which was neat (as was the DQ finish), but fuck this match sucked. A parade of ginger strikes and similar bullshit. I actually seem to recall not hating what I saw of their TLC match so this was super disappointing.

I don’t think we should really be calling Mickie James and Beth Phoenix’s ‘match’ a match. It went what, two minutes? Then Layla and Michelle run in and somehow it ends with Beth killing everyone. Pretty much have to look at it as an angle. And it was a pretty cool angle actually, I’ve been pretty surprised with the Piggy James stuff. And Mickie was hitting Beth harder than anything from the last few matches. And I can always go for more Layla. But yeah this wasn’t a match.

Chris Jericho and Rey Mysterio had some really great matches against each other in 2009. So I get a bit excited for this match here but it’s only going seven minutes so that pretty much kills my excitement because you know damn well they’re gonna try to fit their entire 25 minute match into the smaller time frame. Plus after six months of Jericho teaming with Big Show, Jericho being anywhere without Big Show is massively disappointing. Although his promo is kind of surreal because I can’t remember seeing a singles promo by him for a long, long time. And it’s not like he’s a bad promo so whatever that was alright.

The match itself? Well I liked them putting over a count out win as a desirable result, but then they IMMEDIATELY do that God damn cutaway shit again. But that’s kind of a silly complaint (I am a Negative Nancy I guess) because this match is actually pretty fucking boss. Jericho cuts off Rey with a HIP CHECK. When I was younger I used to play in my grandparents’ living room and hip check my sister and have her hip check me. So that was a fucking fantastic cut off that I marked out for. It really is pretty much a miniature version of their matches from last summer, but those matches were great, this match had a springboard codebreaker and that awesome cut off, and this match was pretty great too.

Wait, R-Truth is in the main event? Oh fuck me. I’m going to go hunt for a Dreamcast instead of watching this shit.